


Logistically Complicated

by icarus_chained



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Original Work
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Conquest, Courage, Curiosity, F/M, Family, Fantasy, Hope, Interspecies Relationship(s), Loss, Manipulation, Original Fiction, Political Expediency, Relationship Negotiation, Romantic Gestures, Self-Sacrifice, Threats, War, challenge, respect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-02 17:38:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8676616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: A tiny bit of a reverse Beauty & the Beast. The beautiful scholar prince of a conquered country is given in marriage to the monstrous warrior queen of their conquerors, in an effort to keep his family and his kingdom safe. It's possible that his new wife didn't expect him to be quite as pragmatic about it as he is, though. To be fair, his family didn't either.





	1. First Encounters

**Author's Note:**

> I'm mostly in the mood for original fic lately, it seems. Odd, rather dark little bit of a thing.

One of the (very few) things that Maoric had always admired about his baby brother was Fami's odd practicality about things. It wasn't something you'd think to expect from looking at him, with his delicate frame and his vague, absent-minded gaze, but beneath his rather whimsical exterior Fami nursed a bedrock streak of pure pragmatism. Once a thing had been declared inevitable, regardless of its nature, most often Fami merely shrugged in the face of it and turned his admittedly formidable intellect into making whatever it was as viable a venture as possible. 

It was a very admirable trait of his brother's. It was also sometimes rather horrifying.

"Do you think he hasn't realised what he's marrying?" Kaeri whispered beside him, watching their brother stand calmly and apparently at his ease by the window, awaiting his fate with distant aplomb. He had a little leather-bound book in one hand, closed for now, and was tapping it absently against his thigh. He looked vague and thoughtful, and not at all like he would shortly be forced into marriage by one of their kingdom's most terrifying enemies. 

Honestly, Maoric couldn't blame Kaeri for the question. It would be odd for their brother to actually outright forget that kind of vital detail, even Fami wasn't usually _that_ absent-minded, but he most certainly didn't _look_ like he remembered just now. Not that Maoric particularly wanted to watch his brother gibbering in terror, but surely some mild trepidation would be appropriate at the very least?

Then again, this was _Fami_. Fami, who'd taken the news of their mother's death with a sort of distant, blank acceptance, even at only five years old. Fami, who'd reacted to the declaration of war by blinking a lot and then spending four months solid sequestered with various ministers and army officials while he reworked the army's logistics from the ground up, not incidentally allowing them to keep fighting a full half-year longer than they would probably otherwise have done. Fami, who'd reacted to the war's _loss_ by ... by sequestering himself with various ministers and ambassadors to attempt to mitigate the damage, and then by calmly agreeing to an arranged marriage to a _monster_ and what would essentially be permanent exile from his home to live as a hostage in another land.

From Fami's point of view, Maoric supposed, there probably wasn't a lot of point in panicking about the decision _now_. It would just ... it would be somewhat comforting to everyone else if he might at least consider it. They already knew they were selling him for their own safety. He didn't have to be so stoically _dignified_ about it.

He was the best choice for this. He'd agreed to that himself. He was the third son, neither heir nor commander, an offering of the blood but not a vital one. He was a scholar by inclination and training, not too much of a threat. 

He was _beautiful_. It'd always been something of a sore spot between them. Maoric and Kaeri might be handsome, but Fami passed well beyond that. He was their mother's son. He had her bones, so sharp and elegant and graceful, her willowy build, her thick, coiled, shining hair. His eyes were soft and brown behind his delicate, gold-rimmed glasses. He looked fragile, and graceful, and far too delicate to be touched. An offering of exquisite craftsmanship, and one that they proposed to hand to a beast. 

For pity's _sake_ , Fami! At least he might show that he realised it. At least he might give permission for their horror, rather than standing unmoved in the middle of it!

A door boomed open somewhere down the hall, harsh footsteps echoing along marble halls, and the entire room straightened abruptly. Maoric felt his own spine stiffen, felt his chin rise helplessly into the air, and cursed himself vaguely for the coward he was. The wedding party had arrived, it would seem. The monster and her entourage, come to claim her husband to be. Her sacrifice, rather. Last chance, Fami. Last chance to show your fear. Pride won't let you once the last door opens.

But Fami didn't. Wouldn't. Of course not. Fami blinked mildly, pulling his gaze back into the room at last, and did nothing more than slip his little book into his inner tunic before drifting across the room to stand beside them. Kaeri grimaced uneasily at him, Maoric himself barely managing to incline his head, but Fami only smiled faintly at them, and turned to regard the still-closed door with what looked like only distant curiosity. 

It was unendurable. Really, truly it was. As admirable a thing as their brother's pragmatic streak could be, there were times when it truly was nothing short of horrifying.

And then the door opened. Then the monsters came. Then horrifying meant something different again.

She was terrifying. Maoric had met their ambassador, met officers of their armies as they closed a stranglehold around his kingdom. Kaeri, for his part, had actually fought them, had pitched himself in battle against the strongest of them. He had even, Maoric knew, seen this one from a distance. Their leader, their warrior queen, the monstrous behemoth who formed the spine of their conquest. From Kaeri's flinch beside him, Maoric knew she was only more terrifying up close, even without a weapon in her hand. She radiated brutality. Even the bravest of men would find their spine curving in her presence. 

And Fami was meant to marry her. Fami was meant to pledge whatever might be left of his life to this ... this _being_. This terrible, monstrous thing.

He moved forward, their brother. The party stopped before them, no one quite daring to say a thing, and Fami moved delicately out in front of them. He stopped in front of her, by all appearances careful and calm, and looked up into the eyes of his bride to be. She halted too. She stood, towering over him, and studied him in her turn.

Maoric couldn't imagine what they saw. What would Fami look like, to her? Some spindly, breakable thing? Some fragile little prize to be brutalised? And Fami, what did he imagine when he looked at her? Eight feet of muscle and fur and terror, her great sword-teeth on display, her thick hands curled around their claws. What sort of future could he see, having pledged himself to such a monster for their sake?

Yet he didn't shake. He didn't quiver, didn't falter at all, and this couldn't all be pride. It couldn't only be dignity and stoicism. All the courage in the world couldn't stand in front of this being without even a _quiver_. Fami only looked thoughtful. His body was loose and open, tilted back to study her curiously, with nothing in it that spoke of fear. Nothing, nothing at all. As blankly, pragmatically accepting as Fami was, this was too much, too far. It was as if ... as if he actually _wasn't afraid_. As if he truly was without fear.

And then ...

He made that little noise of his, that absent clicking sound, and reached up to push his glasses higher on his face. "Oh dear," he said, as mild as summer rains. "This is going to be logistically complicated, isn't it?"

She stared at him. _Everyone_ stared at him. Every man and monster in the room stood blinking down at him, and Fami flushed delicately in response.

"Well," he said, his fingers fluttering the way they tended to when he was embarrassed. "Well, I mean. I'm not presuming, you understand. I know this is primarily a political arrangement. And I know you already have an heir, which is fortunate, since I'm nearly positive our peoples are incompatible in that regard. I've never read of a half-breed, at any rate. Which, yes, perhaps a little besides the point. I'm really not presuming. But, you know. Marriage. I did ... I mean, I thought it prudent to research a little? Just in case. It's just, on seeing you ... It is going to be a little difficult, isn't it. Logistically speaking. It's going to be, ah. Well. Complicated?"

He trailed off, and there was a very, _very_ long pause. Maoric stared at his little brother in blank, distant horror. He'd been ... he'd been _researching_ ... He thought of the little book, abruptly, the little thing currently tucked in his brother's tunic, and wondered rather hysterically where on earth his brother had _gotten_ such a thing and what, exactly, might be contained within it. It was ... _He_ was ...

The she-beast cleared her throat. _Carefully_. Maoric wasn't sure he believed it, but she seemed to be regarding his brother rather more warily than before, and with considerable bemusement.

"I can honestly say," she said, thickly around her teeth, "that I hadn't really thought about it. You're right. I had thought of this largely as a political union." A smaller pause, while Fami seemed to honestly _wilt_ a little bit, and then: "However? I am most definitely thinking about it _now_." She tilted her head, looking down at him with an odd expression on her leonine face, and one clawed head reached up as though she wanted to touch him. "You seem ... almost pleased by that," she noted softly.

A little smile flickered delicately across Fami's face. He ducked his head, reaching up to adjust his glasses once again. "Not pleased, exactly," he said, softly and carefully. "You understand that there is little enough that is pleasing in this situation, my lady." He looked up at her, though, and with more hope than defiance about him. "But I had, perhaps, hoped to gain something from it. And it would be a shame, I think, for all that study to go to waste?"

It was almost shy. It was careful, and hesitant, and Maoric recognised it immediately. He knew the tone. It was Fami's manoeuvring tone, the one he adopted while gently steering ministers and family members alike into agreement. That, too, he had inherited from their mother. It was the voice he used when quietly and unobtrusively angling to get his way. That tone, from Fami, was the same as the stir of a sword in Kaeri's hand or the hard drop of an ultimatum from their father's lips. It was a challenge, said soft and gently smiling.

And she knew it, too. The she-beast. She must have seen it, caught it. There was a flash in her yellow eyes, hard and bright, but it didn't entirely look like anger. Anticipation, more so. Appreciation, maybe. A challenge returned. She straightened to her full height above him, her sword-teeth gleaming as she parted her lips in a smile, and Fami smiled blankly and blandly back at her, his eyes vague and placid behind his glasses, delicate whimsy over a streak of pure bedrock pragmatism.

"... It would be a shame indeed," the she-beast agreed, reaching out at last to cup that clawed hand so carefully around his brother's cheek. Fami leaned into it, his own hand reaching up to rest lightly over her wrist, and Maoric swallowed suddenly over a rush of terror and bitter, horrified admiration.

He was such a pragmatic creature, their brother. Practical, calmly accepting. He was so fragile-looking, so beautiful and delicate and absent-minded. And underneath it, so horrifying. Perhaps the she-beast was not the only monster in this marriage. Perhaps his brother was not so grossly outmatched as he'd thought. She looked warmly upon him now. The she-beast looked at his brother with the beginnings of what might have been respect.

They only had to hope, Maoric thought, that this was a challenge Fami planned to pursue to a better end than his death. 

But then again, no force had ever broken Fami yet.


	2. Declarations of Intent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Calime, the she-beast, takes an evening to get to know her promised husband/hostage better. They don't get as far as logistically complicated, but still it's all she might have hoped for and more.

The heavy door of the 'guest chambers' closed at last behind her, two of her bodyguards standing firm beyond it, and Calime finally had time alone to study her husband to be at her leisure. He had moved ahead of her into the room, seemingly blithe and unconcerned, and had fetched up on the balcony, standing half-obscured by silken drapes as he looked out over his childhood kingdom. He didn't seem to regard her. He seemed absent and thoughtful, and unworried by her presence in the slightest. Calime churred to herself, and settled her bulk by the door to watch him that little longer. If he wasn't going to rush then neither would she.

He was a strange one, this Prince Famiya. Not at all what she had expected. The brothers, yes, they had been exactly as regal and resentful and terrified in the face of her as she had predicted. But _this_ one, the one they meant to be hers ... no. Not expected at all.

It had been fascinating to watch him earlier. The way he had stepped out to meet her, casual and thoughtful, and managed to wrongfoot her from the very first moment. 'Logistically complicated', _hah!_ He didn't lack for courage, anyway, nor tactical awareness either. The field had been his from that moment, and he had taken it with easy aplomb, the better to gently steer his opponents as he pleased. She'd watched him do it. She'd let him. For all she might have fought him, wrested it from him and reminded him where control truly lay, she'd wanted to see what he would do with it. She'd wanted a glimmer of his aims.

Though they hadn't been hard to divine in the end. His touch was delicate enough in their service, but his goals had been very plain, and all the more poignant for it. 

He'd been trying to protect his family. Nothing more, nothing less. He'd stepped out in front of them in that first moment, drawn her eyes to him and him alone, in an effort to shield them and shepherd them through this first and potentially worst meeting intact. 

She'd spent the entirety of that interminable 'welcome' feast watching him do it. Letting him, to a large extent. Testing him at times, pushing, but she'd taken some care not to let herself push too hard. As tempting as it had been in places. He'd spent most of his efforts trying to shield the second brother in particular, the warrior who'd faced them on the field. The one whose fear and resentment had made him a very tempting target indeed. Her prince had interposed himself between them in conversation more than once. The elder brother, Maoric, the soon-to-be-king, had fared better for himself, managing to hide the worst of his horror behind diplomacy, but his grief had been increasingly obvious the more she had allowed his youngest brother to draw her ire and her interest back his way. 

He'd known what his brother was doing, or realised it somewhere along the way. She'd watched that too, watched the horror and the admiration grow in lockstep across his expression as the feast finally wore to an end. There'd been pure heartbreak on his face when she'd closed her hand around his brother's wrist, near swallowing his entire arm in the process, and asked him to attend to her for the evening. Nothing untoward, of course. They were not yet married. But she should like the chance to get to know her betrothed better. The thought of that, the terror of it, had nearly broken the brother's heart, though he'd had no choice but to allow it.

Famiya, for his part, had taken it without so much as a flicker across his expression. Indeed, if he'd been anything, she would have said he'd been somewhat relieved. It didn't entirely surprise her. She thought her promised husband well capable of minding himself. It was minding everyone else as well that so exhausted him.

She looked back at him now, the figure he made leaning on the balcony balustrade. His face was obscured from this angle, all its sharp bones and gold-rimmed lenses hidden by the tight curls of his hair across his spine and shoulders. He was such a slender thing, even for a human. He moved like a dancer, slow and thoughtful and with a steady, unconscious grace. His beauty was storied from here to the western mountains. It wasn't entirely obvious to her, being a distinctly _human_ sort of beauty, but even she could mark enough of it. 

There'd been rumours of what she would do to ruin it long before she'd ever actually agreed to take him as a husband. Half his kingdom had seemed terrified of what she would do to this specific prince before all others, as though a beast like her could do nothing but take him, and nothing then but ruin him. She still wasn't entirely sure why. As he'd said himself, the thing they seemed to fear most would be 'logistically complicated' at best. She had little enough use for human beauty aside _from_ ruining it, and taking him just for that would have been extraordinarily petty, and more than a little useless besides. 

It had been the warrior brother she'd wanted to take initially. As a hostage, not a husband. It'd made the most sense to control that sort of threat, and at least him she would have known what to do with. Taking him would have weakened the entire kingdom behind him. Yet somehow she'd been manoeuvred into this instead, into a forced marriage to this fabled beauty, his brothers left safe and horrified behind him. That had seemed strange to her a few hours ago, given just how much they _were_ afraid for this prince, how very much they didn't want her to have him. It seemed a great deal less so now. She recognised his work already.

And oh, what a prize he might be, knowing that. Not as his brother would have been, not so simple and so straightforward as that, but a prize nonetheless. He certainly had value as a hostage, given the desperate grief in his brothers' eyes. She now knew him as a threat to be controlled as well, a force that it would weaken his kingdom to remove. Though whether taking that threat to her bosom would lessen it or _exacerbate_ it was a different question again.

It was a question she wanted to have answered, suddenly. It was a challenge she wanted very much to answer in kind.

The thought spurred her. She moved, stirred, and saw his spine stiffen slightly at the sound of it. He was turning even as she levered herself off the wall, straightening up and drifting casually and carefully around to face her. His glasses gleamed golden in the lamplight, a soft, idle little smile curling his lips. Oh yes. So very capable of minding himself, this one. Willing to meet her and match her on any field. Or so he wished to seem, at least. 

She didn't want to crush that seeming. Not exactly. But she did want ... something else.

She reached out as she came abreast of him. Took his throat. Slowly, so that he would see it coming, and very carefully. Very gently. She didn't _want_ to crush him. She curled her great hand around his slender, delicate throat, while he didn't so much as flinch, and held it long enough to feel ... 

To feel the rush of his pulse beneath his skin. To feel the spike, as his heart leapt, and then to feel it subside, subsumed back into his calm as her claws didn't pierce and her hand didn't close. He blinked up at her, his eyes placid and calm behind his glasses, her hand around his throat. All at once, she felt like laughing. She felt a surge in her chest that maybe wasn't that far from love.

"So," she said softly. "You are afraid, then. You do fear the monster that has you in her grasp."

He looked up at her, his hands loose and languid by his sides, making no move to contest her grip. No _overt_ move. Of course not. That wasn't the field on which he fought.

"Shouldn't I be?" he asked quietly. So mildly. "I don't know you, my lady. I don't know what you intend, and my life is yours to do with as you please. Isn't it only sensible to feel a little fear in the face of that?"

She laughed at him. Gently. She let go of his neck to cup her hand around his cheek instead. He allowed it, letting his head tilt into her palm. Nerveless. Wholly committed to his course, fear or no fear. She may have little enough use for beauty, but _this_ , courage and challenge like this, oh yes. This she could value. This she could see her way through to keeping, whether it killed her later or not.

"I wanted your brother, you know," she said, watching how surprise completely failed to cross his face. "The second one, Kaerinic. But you did know, didn't you. You're the reason it's you instead of him. You chose this. You arranged it."

His gaze dropped. Only for a moment, only the smallest flicker. One of his hands came up to grip her wrist again. Nearly a warning, their respective strengths aside.

"It wouldn't have been a marriage to Kaeri," he said, a glimmer of something uncompromising coming into his voice. "He would have been your prisoner, and you would have had to kill him eventually. He would have pushed you to it." He raised his eyes again, and there was nothing absent about him at all. "A live hostage is more useful than a dead one, my lady. And I have a great many hopes about this marriage. I hope you'll give me the chance to try for them?"

She said nothing for a moment. A long one, perhaps, only looking at him, only holding that hidden, uncompromising gaze. He never looked away. His hand stayed firm around her wrist. Until she moved it, at least. Until she withdrew her own hand from his cheek and caught his with it instead, held it thoughtfully for a moment, and then ... 

Then she brought it to her lips. 

She'd never kissed anything before. It was a human gesture, unnatural to her. Sword-teeth tended to make such things difficult between her people. It seemed a strange, empty thing to bring that delicate hand up and press her furred lips gently to the back of it. It also seemed fitting, though. He wasn't the only one who'd tried to _research_ this union once it had been decided. Kisses were well spoken of in human writing, and this kind, this courtly touch to a hand, was at least semi-practical for her.

"I intend to give you every chance," she said, smiling faintly while he stared at her, finally wrongfooted in his turn. "You're nothing I thought to expect, Prince Famiya, but you are many things I might have dared to hope for. However logistically complicated it may turn out to be, I intend to give this marriage every chance indeed."

He blinked at her for a long second, his eyelids fluttering rapidly behind his glasses. She liked that. Confusion looked well on him. Then he smiled. A soft, vague curl, slow and dangerous, and she liked that more again. Indeed, she thought she liked it most of all.

"Fami," he said, mild and absent once again. He stroked his thumb across her claws. "For my wife, as for family, my name would be Fami."

She bared half her teeth in a smile, a great joy in her chest as she rose to the challenge. "Calime," she offered back. "For my husband, I am Calime."

He made a clicking noise in his throat, nodding vaguely to himself. He pulled his hand unhurriedly from her grasp, daring her to keep hold of it, and moved idly back a step or two when she proved content to let him go. He pushed his glasses up his nose, and looked at her thoughtfully for a moment or two.

"Well then," he said at last. "Perhaps, Calime ... we might take this opportunity to get to know our future spouses a little better, then?" He smiled crookedly. "That was our intended purpose this evening, was it not?"

She snorted loudly. "Having known you for a few hours now," she said wryly, "I have a suspicion it's going to take me more than an evening to manage _that_."

And there. There. _All_ his teeth, his joy in the challenge clearly equal to hers. He laughed like a declaration of war, risen from the ashes of the old one, and spread his hands delightedly before her.

"Isn't it fortunate, then," he said lightly. "Isn't it so very fortunate that we have all the rest of our lives?"

Oh yes, she thought, staring at him. Oh yes, indeed it _was_. It really, truly was.

No better or more complicated marriage could she have asked for, after all.


	3. Wedding Presents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An hour before his wedding, Fami receives a visit, and a present, from his eldest brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I'm not sure how far I'm going with this, but I figured I'd see how far I'd get. Also, people wanted a little bit of Fami POV, which randomly turned into family feels. Um. Not quite sure how that happened, but I actually _like_ Maoric? Heh.

It was odd to look into a sheet of gilded glass and see a man dressed in his wedding clothes. Fami studied himself curiously, reaching up to adjust the swathe of yellow-and-gold silk thrown back over his left shoulder. It was anchored well enough, seeming disinclined to move even under some duress. He traced the tiny beads stitched along the edges of it absently. He did look the part, he had to admit. A prince on his wedding day, no doubt about that.

Even the glasses matched well enough. Teoli, his very clever maidservant, had managed to tumble his hair around them just so, loose and artful beneath the gold cloth of his crown, so that as long as he didn't poke them too much they seemed almost a part of the whole. It was truly excellently done. 

He only wished she hadn't cried when he told her so.

He took a slow, deep breath. Oh, but he would be glad when this was finally done. As terrifying and uncertain a future as he would be left with afterwards, at least it would be his alone to face or to flinch from as he chose, without a thousand other hopes and lives hanging in the balance around it. A marriage was a private thing, was it not? He would live and die for other people's whims, not they for his. An infinitely simpler arrangement, surely.

Oh, probably not. He knew that. He had a whole new land to navigate, a new court with all its pitfalls, and a wife who may or may not allow him much liberty. It would likely be very complicated and potentially very briefly exciting indeed. But at least his brothers would be safe by then. At least no one would cry for him where he'd have to watch them do it.

Only an hour or so now. Only a few hours until it was done, and then a day or two until they left the city. Left the _kingdom_. A few hours and then a few days, and then all he'd have to worry about would be Calime and what she meant for him thereafter.

He wasn't overly concerned about that, he realised. He looked around inside himself, stirred his feelings thoughtfully, but he really wasn't all that worried about it. She was an interesting creature, his wife. Dangerous. Surprisingly subtle. A warrior queen who'd destroyed two enemy kingdoms within eleven years of her reign. She was nothing safe to go home to, that was certain. Yet he didn't sense much in the way of cruelty from her. Ruthlessness, yes, practicality. She was cold and she was clever and she would kill anything that got in her way. If he crossed her, he would know about it very rapidly indeed. And yet. She hadn't needled much. She hadn't toyed with him. Only tested him. Only tried to take his measure.

He could understand that urge, at least. He'd rather like the measure of his wife as well. But, well. He'd have more than enough time for that soon enough, wouldn't he?

"... Fami?"

The voice was soft. Hesitant. Far too hesitant for a man who would shortly be a king, even one of a conquered kingdom. Maybe _especially_ one of a conquered kingdom. They had to keep their backbone now, or risk losing it forever. Fami blinked once at his reflection, watched the expression cool and calm on that mirrored face. He knew Maoric didn't like that, but they didn't really have time for much else anymore. He added a little smile, to soften it, and put a touch of flamboyance into his turn, his wedding robes flowing out around him.

"Maoric," he said, his smile flickering brighter in defence against the pain on his brother's face. "I look well enough, don't you think? You must take care of Teoli when I'm gone. She has a touch of genius about her."

It would have been a needle when they were younger, a semi-wounding blow. Maoric and Kaeri both had always been oddly jealous of his looks, how little work they needed to shine. Teoli's artistry was largely wasted on him, and yet he had won her regardless. That had been a sharp bone between them once.

It was wounding now, too, but not for that reason. Not any more.

"Please don't," his brother asked. Near begged, drifting close to him. He was the taller by some fingers, hard and lean and imposing. Fami had truly never understood why Maoric, of all people, had ever been jealous of him. "Please, Fami. Not today. For this one conversation, I beg you, please. No artifice. I would speak with my brother while I still may. Please."

Fami blinked at him. His hand curled gently behind the shield of his sleeve. He nodded. Carefully. After a moment, much softer, Maoric spoke again.

"I know it's too late to move you," he said softly. "I know it's too late to stop this. It was too late months ago. It shouldn't be different now that I've seen her, and yet ... What do I tell Father, Fami? If he wakes up. What do I tell him when he asks where you are?"

Fami winced, but only faintly. "He's not going to wake up, Maoric," he said, as gently as he knew how. "The illness has worn him down to nothing. It won't be long now. You don't have to answer to him. You're king in all but name. You only answer to yourself." A pause, and he grimaced ruefully. "Well. Yourself and my wife, but with luck, as long as the tribute is regular, she won't be watching you that closely. I don't think she's the kind to interfere too much, though I suppose we'll find out soon enough how right I am."

Maoric stared him. Near angrily, Fami thought, that so familiar frustration that had always edged their conversations. More so now. Fami couldn't help it, though. 

"How can you be so calm?" his brother asked, almost helplessly, his hands curled into fists of frustration. "How, Fami? How are you _always_ so calm? You know what you marry in an hour. You know what will take you beyond any hope of our help. Our father is dying, you are taken from us, and I can save neither of you. How can you be so _calm_? In the face of that, in the face of everything?"

Fami felt a spark of anger at that. A little surge, a hard little curl of fury in his own chest. After a moment, he let it show. No artifice, Maoric said. Well then. No artifice indeed. He let his expression slide, let it show his brother the truth he so badly wanted.

"Because there's no point being otherwise," he said, with all the clipped command of a prince on his wedding day. "For either of us, Maoric. In an hour I will be a husband and a hostage, and in a few days or weeks you will be a king with a war torn kingdom to rule. We have neither time nor space for anything other than calm, and you _know it_. Kaeri has no head for politics, and his army is splintered. He's only going to be of so much help. You need to calm down, brother. Father is dying. As cruel as it is, he can't be your concern much longer. And I ..."

He stopped. Took a breath, held it long and slow. He breathed it out, letting himself soften in its wake. He moved forwards. Slowly, carefully. He touched his stricken brother lightly on the shoulder, closer than had been their wont in a very long time.

"I will be fine, brother," he said, warm and gentle. "You have to trust me. I will learn the measure of my wife. I will learn how to deal with her. I will learn her court and her kingdom and its rules. I will learn how to help you, if I can and as much as I can, as long as I am in her court. I will _learn_ , brother. I am a scholar first and foremost. This I am good at. You have to trust me. You have to put me from your mind, do what is best for our kingdom, and trust that I will either survive it, or count it worth dying for. I'm not afraid, Maoric. Marriage may not be something I had looked for, but it's nothing I can't handle."

He hoped. He _hoped_. But if they lost their backbone now, they'd never get it back again. And besides. Fami had had enough crying for today. He was only getting married in an hour. It was a political arrangement. It wasn't that much to cry over.

Something odd flickered across Maoric's expression. Something strange, something Fami wasn't sure he'd seen before. His brother stared down at him, and something that might have almost been a smile slid slow and careful across his face.

"You really are her son," Maoric said. From nowhere, or so Fami thought, but then his brother reached up. Touched his cheek, the rim of his glasses lightly. "She was a war bride too. Mother. I don't know how much you remember her, Fami. You were young when she died. But you ... you do more than look like her. She was a war bride too. I think there was no one Father ever loved more in his life. She had him from the first, and never let him go."

Fami blinked at him. Uselessly. He didn't ... he didn't know what to say.

"I ... I have something for you," Maoric went on, fumbling awkwardly with his belt pouch. He pulled something free of it eventually, holding it uneasily in his closed fist. Fami only continued to blink. "It ... It was hers. It was meant to be yours. I stole, years ago. Back when I didn't like you very much. She brought it from her home kingdom. I think ... I think when she saw you, she always knew it was going to be yours."

He opened his hand, and Fami stared blankly at a ... a shell? A shell frozen in stone, brown and polished where it curled on his brother's palm. Thin wires of gold were woven around it, a golden thread looped through it so that it might be worn around the neck. His mother had been from the western mountains, the sea beyond them. She must have carried the thing a long way.

"Call it a wedding present," his brother said softly. Awkwardly, and Fami had never felt tears threaten so strongly in his entire life. "From me and ... and from her. One war bride to another. It should have been yours a long time ago. Maybe I hoped it wouldn't have to be. Or ... or maybe I just really didn't like you back then."

Fami laughed, helplessly, and did his best to pretend he wasn't crying. Pretended he could see through the mist across his glasses. Maoric tugged him awkwardly, carefully into a hug.

"Don't die, little brother," he whispered, into the mess he'd made of Fami's artfully tumbled hair. "Don't let her break you. Until the day she came here, I didn't think any human could face that beast and win, but I didn't count on you. I don't think anyone did, and her least of all. So show her, then. Show her what our mother showed our father. If I have to manage our entire kingdom by myself, the least you can manage is a marriage."

Fami made a noise. Even he wasn't sure what sort of one. He curled both his hands in his brother's tunic, and pressed his face into Maoric's chest. "I promise," he said thickly. "I promise, Maoric. You mind Kaeri and the kingdom, and I'll mind my wife. I'll manage it. I promise you."

"... I know," his brother said, steering him gently back and looking at him. He had never looked more a king, Fami thought. It suited him better than it ever had their father. "I know you will, Fami. The beast won't know what hit her. I don't doubt it at all."

And well. Well then. That said that as plainly as possible, didn't it?

Fami reached up. Pulled his glasses off, wiped his hands across his face. Wiped his glasses too, for that matter. He looked down at himself, and plucked lightly at his wedding clothes. They weren't that badly rumpled, really. Someone had anchored them very well. Maoric had to have made a terrible mess of his hair, though. Fami didn't know if he even wanted to see how much of one. He grimaced up at his brother, and put his glasses firmly back on his face. 

"Go out and stall my wife for a little while, will you?" he asked calmly. "And send Teoli back in here. She's going to have to redo the bulk of her work, I fear."

Maoric laughed softly. Hard and wondering, like it pained him. He touched his hand gently to Fami's cheek one last time, mopping up the last remnants of his tears. 

"She won't know what hit her," he said again, more strongly now. Not meaning Teoli at all. "She won't even know where to start. You're going to win this, Fami. I know you are. A beauty to master a beast. This isn't beyond you at all."

That remained to be seen, Fami thought wryly. That wasn't guaranteed at all. But either way, he wasn't going to come any closer to it standing around here.

"Go away, brother," he said lightly. "I have a wedding to prepare for. Kindly don't make me any later for it than I have to be."

An hour, he thought, while Maoric made a wry and far from kingly retreat. Less than an hour, though likely they'd have to push it back a bit. But still. An hour to be married, and a few days to be taken away. He could hold it that long. He could keep his calm at least that far ahead.

And after that ... he'd do what needed doing as it came. Nobody could do more than that, after all. Nobody could do better. 

And nobody ... could do it half as well as he.


	4. Wedding Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Calime and Fami, on their wedding night. She intends a chaste one. She won't break him so soon. Perhaps some smaller intimacies might still creep up on them, though.

Well, Calime thought mildly, while two rather terrified servants escorted her and her newly-wed husband to their wedding chambers. Well. That had been interesting.

It had been a very small ceremony for the marriage of a prince and a foreign leader. That had been the humans' design, but Calime and her advisors had agreed to it readily enough. He was very popular, her prince, beloved the length and breadth of his kingdom, despite how few knew or had even seen him. For his beauty, apparently, and his intelligence, and the resemblance he bore to his equally beloved mother. To openly flaunt him as her personal conquest might have driven home her power all the more, but Sentha in particular had thought it more likely to serve as a goad towards their inevitable rebellion. Calime tended to listen to Sentha. Her wicked old crone of an advisor was usually right about these things.

Besides. Having finally _met_ said beloved prince, she did have to concede the point. He could make himself a martyr with terrifying ease, given half a chance and a bare few moments to appear before a crowd. The wedding ceremony had only driven the point home more clearly. Every human in the room had watched his entrance with the air of those watching a funeral procession, and he had swept through it with golden dignity like the most beautiful sacrifice ever led to ceremonial slaughter. When she had taken his hands and drawn him near, his second brother had almost had to be forcibly restrained from drawing his sword. She had no doubt that an open crowd, watching that, would have become a mob in very short order, and wedding day massacres were hardly omens of a good marriage or means to make conquered kingdoms amenable to her control.

She hadn't come all this way and taken two kingdoms, the greatest threats to her people's future, only to lose them at the last to a beautiful face and a well-timed baring of a lovely neck. Fire take him anyway. He was a sly, dangerous thing, her husband. He was a rebellion waiting to happen, and perfectly conscious of it too. 

She looked down at him, keeping pace with her with graceful ease despite her longer stride, still with every seeming of serenity. His attention never flickered, his brown eyes soft and vague. Never an inkling of awareness, of either her power or his own. Oh, such a prize indeed. She almost couldn't wait to introduce him to Sentha. She would give quite a lot to watch those two hone their claws against each other. It would be the most bloodlessly thorough carnage ever witnessed. She could imagine it already.

All she had to do was get him home first. Spirit him from his kingdom, where all his people so violently loved him, and make him hers in truth. A challenge, yes, and how she welcomed it. She would marry him again afterwards, in her own capital. She would have a ceremony for her own people as well. One that counted.

Not that this one hadn't. Small though it had been, it had been genuine as far as her knowledge of his people could tell her. The royal records keeper, possibly the darkest human she had ever seen and among the oldest as well, had etched their names on the royal pillar beneath those of her prince's parents. She doubted that was something they would willingly falsify. Certainly not the records keeper himself. He'd had a face carved from nightwood and a uncompromising stare to go with it. She wouldn't lay good odds on anyone tampering with _his_ records. Not even the royal family themselves.

Nonetheless. As real as that ceremony might have been, it had aimed in only one direction. They had married him to her in their own manner, as a tribute and a concession of mastery. He was married to her in his people's eyes, not she to him in hers. Not yet. 

She could leave it that way, she thought, as they finally reached the wedding chamber and her husband looked absently up at her. She studied him, the careful courage of him, the desperately dangerous thing beneath it. She didn't have to be his wife, not as he was her husband. She could take him home, keep him prisoner among her people, and never acknowledge him as anything more. She could keep him as hostage or slave or even concubine, logistics allowing, and leave him to her people's mercy otherwise. He would live. Those close to her knew the necessity of that. He wouldn't be killed. He would never be respected either. Never acknowledged.

She _could_ do that. She could. And yet she knew she wouldn't. She'd known before she ever married him this day. From their first evening together, she'd known. It was why she'd worn blue with her armour today, her people's wedding colour. He was far too great a prize, this lethal princeling. It wasn't in her not to claim him completely and in full.

She would marry him again, when they reached her kingdom. She would have her people know just how valuable a thing she had won.

And he knew, didn't he. When the door closed behind them, leaving them finally and completely alone together, every escort at last stripped away. He stood in the centre of the room, facing her, belonging to her, alone and with no more hope of rescue ever again. He looked up at her, her husband, and he _knew_. He trembled, he couldn't help it, but never once did he lower his gaze. Never once did he retreat.

It wasn't in him. It wasn't his nature. And Calime would have her people know how much she _treasured_ that.

"... So then," her prince said softly, while she moved to him and touched him lightly on the cheek. She cupped it, a familiar gesture now, and he leaned carefully into her hand as always. "What now, my wife? Is this the part where we finally test those logistics, and see how complicated they might be?"

He didn't flinch for saying it. There was even, she thought, a glimmer of real curiosity about him, as though he might truly be interested in such an exercise, if he could only be assured of his safety in her hands. The shadow of his fear was too deep for it now, though. As ready as he wished he was, she was still a monster and a beast to him, and this night was the first in which he belonged to her utterly. He couldn't help but be afraid. He couldn't help but shake with it, for all he made his voice as calm and steady as the horizon. 

She couldn't break him. She _couldn't_ break him. Not like this, not this way. It would only make him more dangerous, and she didn't want to besides. His dignity was too beautiful a thing to shatter uselessly against a bedstead.

Yet he was hers. He was, and she meant to have some part of him. Just ... not that one.

"... Not tonight," she said, still holding his trembling cheek in her hand. He blinked at her, and she carefully stroked his curls with her other hand. She'd had her claws oiled for the ceremony. They slipped through his hair with never a snarl. "Not tonight, my husband. If I'm truthful, I don't much desire you in that manner, and tonight of all nights I'm in no mood for awkward fumblings to see how much pleasure either of us may truly gain. No. Not tonight."

There was a flicker in his expression. She watched it curiously, but it was faint enough that she couldn't quite read it. Disappointment maybe. Dread, for the deferral? Or maybe just relief. It filtered through him, softened his spine. She felt it, her claws still cupped about his cheek. She felt the tautness of him faintly ease, and found the sensation not displeasing.

"Is that mercy?" he wondered softly, that vague smile flickering once more across his face. "Or should I call it a rejection instead?"

She laughed at him. Softly, only softly. She gathered him gently to her chest. He went with surprising ease, and she didn't immediately feel a knife at her ribs either. Though he'd have to aim for her armpit to do true damage from here. Her armour might be ceremonial today, but it would still blunt most blades, and he didn't have a lot of leverage this close. She scooped him up into her arms, and laughed at the studied blankness of his expression, the way he stiffened and then loosened deliberately, and didn't cling despite his alarm. Oh, but he was perfect. She brought him gently to their wedding bed, and set him on the edge it while he carefully did not flinch. Perfect. So very perfect indeed.

"Not a rejection," she told him solemnly, pulling his crown loose from his curls. "Not mercy either. You're mine now, husband, and that I will not turn from. It's not war I want tonight, though, or uncertainty either. There'll be all the rest of our marriage for that. Let's have peace for tonight, hmm? Both of us."

He blinked up at her. Again, a flicker. Surprise? No. Challenge. He had danger coiled inside him, defiance too, and Calime thought she caught a glimmer of it there. What right have you to peace, it seemed to say. What right have you to calm when me and mine have none? His fingers curled against the bedspread, and for a moment there was something brightly savage about him.

It faded, though. It vanished, crushed ruthlessly downwards by his pragmatism, and he only smiled at her mildly instead. He only inclined his head, and nodded agreement to her wishes.

By _light_ he was lethal. A poisoned blade, currently sheathed but ever ready. She dearly wished to own him. She wanted badly to have him in her hand, and trust that it would be her enemies he struck. She could afford care, to earn that. She could perhaps afford a great many things, to be negotiated later, and at length.

She'd want the measure of him first. He was too sly by far to make promises from the start.

"Come," she said, instead of offering any. She plucked lightly at the golden wrapping of his robes, still caught stiff and splendid around him. "We'll dress for bed. Do you need help with those? They look worse than armour for complexity."

He blinked, startled, and then he snorted at her. Rough and inelegant. Calime nearly laughed, delighted by the gesture. Well, so he wasn't graceful all the time! He nudged her hand gently away from the cloth at his shoulder, and squinted thoughtfully up at her.

"I doubt they're _worse_ ," he said, tone leaking back into his voice now that it would only reveal amusement rather than terror. "Perhaps about even. Shall we trade, wife? You peel me from mine if I unbuckle you from yours?" His smile widened as she stared at him, bright and knifelike and almost honest. "We should do at least _one_ traditional thing this night, if we're to virtuously avoid all else."

She did laugh at him then, a warm, rumbling purr of deep amusement. It rattled out of her chest and won a flash of open startlement from him, astonishment where he sat wondering up at her, and then a slow, small smile, perhaps more genuine than the last. Or less. She couldn't tell yet. She promised herself happily that she would learn.

"A trade," she agreed, taking his shoulders warmly in her hands. "Armour for armour, husband of mine. And then a bath, I think. I need to groom out my fur. I do so hate ceremonial armour. It tends to catch in awkward places."

He chuckled softly. And then ... then he touched her. Carefully, curiously on the arm, the brown-gold fur emerging above her bracer. He pulled it curiously between his fingers, his face soft and thoughtful, and Calime paused. Watched him, studied and studying in turn. He pushed his palm up along her arm, to the unshielded hollow of her elbow, the slightly longer flow of fur extending down from her shoulders. She leaned down a little to allow it. He touched her fur gently, sifting his fingers through it. There was such a strange look on his so-human face. That vague curiosity from earlier, softened now without the fear to edge it. He looked up at her. She met his eyes wordlessly.

"Perhaps I might help you with that," he said, soft and almost hesitant. "If ... if you'd like. If you'd show me how. Wife. _Calime_."

She didn't answer for a moment. Nearly couldn't, wrongfooted all over again by the strangeness of him. It might be manipulation. It might not. The softer he got, the more sly, and only more dangerous for it. He was so soft, and so strange, and so dangerous. It wasn't desire he made her feel, at least she didn't think so, but it was _something_. Something she'd never felt for any lover, not even the now-dead father of her child, her precious Inora. She wasn't sure if she'd ever felt the like of it before. It felt ... she didn't know. That trembling moment before battle, maybe, that breathless, pounding feeling. A thrumming in her veins.

"... I would like that," she managed at last, her voice rougher and far softer than her wont. "Fami. My husband. I think I'd like that quite a lot."

Light. Oh light. He was going to get her killed. This poisoned knife was going to be her deathblow.

And somehow, she couldn't manage to regret it. Not even for a moment.


	5. Morning Vows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their first shared morning, Fami and Calime wake slowly, share some cold truths, and perhaps some warmer promises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'll finish this one here, and if/when some more comes, I'll put it in a sequel? I figured this would be a good break, between his kingdom and hers.

He woke with his wife's arm curled across his waist, heavy with sleep, clawed hand slack and open on the sheets in front of his belly. Fami blinked at it for a bit. It took a little while for the image to make sense. It was a bit blurred around the edges, of course, from the lack of his glasses, but that wasn't really why he had such difficulty with it.

He'd spent the night with her. His wife. And yes, it had been their wedding night, it was somewhat _expected_ that they'd spend the night together, but not ... 

Not like this. Not with her. Not like _this_. She was warm behind him. He could feel her, feel the tickle of her fur through his nightshirt, the slow, steady rumble of her breathing. He'd curled back in against her chest in the night. Possibly she'd helped him with that, but still. He hadn't woken. Hadn't even realised. Her arm was heavy and warm across his waist. The sight of her hand stirred no particular worry in him.

He wondered idly if she'd somehow managed to drug her fur. Hardly likely, he knew that, but he was having trouble coming up with a better explanation. This odd lassitude of his, he remembered vaguely how it began last night. Her fur. Grooming her fur. He'd gotten caught up in it somehow. That ... hadn't been the result he'd intended by the offer. 

Well. Not _his_ lassitude, anyway. He'd had some hopes that it might soothe her, allow him some measure of connection and control. He remembered that. That was the way this worked. This marriage. It was the method that had served him best so far, to draw her focus, keep it, interact with it. It had been instinct, at first, to draw her away from his brothers, but it _worked_. Rage or flinching drew her callousness in turn. _This_ , this other thing, stepping in to meet her, this drew something else. Mostly curiosity, he thought, interest and challenge, but with them a lack of violence. So far. So _far_. But still. It was ... more than half terrifying, to deliberately draw her in, but it was oddly invigorating as well. He'd always been less afraid doing rather than waiting, and he knew that only by her interest did he have any power at all.

That wasn't a soothing relationship. There shouldn't be room in that for lassitude. Rhythm, vagueness, distraction. Real distraction, not the seeming of it. Nearly relaxation. Enough that he was still tangled in the ends of it now. He let himself stir a little, let himself shift and test his muscles, and found them loose, idle and content. Maybe a little sore around the shoulders. She had a _lot_ of fur. And it had been ... 

There'd been a sort of intimacy in it. The grooming. He hadn't planned for that. He realised it now, idly and bemusedly, so very much too late. It had seemed only pragmatic last night, a softer and more indirect means of interaction than most at his disposal, and he'd been ... he'd been curious as well. He had been from the start, if only for the strangeness of her. Had she wanted the other, the more logistically complicated venture, and Ama help him he was going to be thinking of it in those terms for the entire rest of his _life_ ... ahem. Had she wanted it, there was a part of him that would have earnestly tried as well. Just for curiosity's sake. Just to see if it could be made to work. However it would have ended, he really did think he would have tried.

He rather doubted he'd have relaxed with it, though. Not unless she really _had_ drugged her fur. Some perfume, maybe? How feasible was that? But no. It hadn't been that. He knew it hadn't. 

There'd just been a warmth in it. A rhythm, a slow, careful curiosity. Exploring her, with no intent whatsoever. She'd watched him. Helped him, here or there. Relaxed into him, eventually, once he'd gotten the hang of it. _That_ had been a heady thing. A drug in and of itself. She'd let him touch her, so carefully, and there'd been this heavy, lidded interest from her all the way. Wariness, danger, lassitude. A warm, heavy coil. Was it meant to be so intimate? He'd read somewhere that grooming was a social engagement for her people. It couldn't be this intimate all the time. They'd never get anything _done_. 

And yet, last night. Maybe it had only been him, but still. Last night. 

He hadn't planned for that. The thought hummed through him, easing and tangling alongside the ebbing languor, a thread of mixed alarm and amusement. His life was in the balance. His _kingdom_ was in the balance. And he hadn't expected this. Warmth. Distraction. Easiness. She was a monster, a conquering queen, and even if he understood somewhat better than his brothers _why_ , exactly, she'd come to be that, she still wasn't meant to be gentle. She still wasn't supposed to pull ... something from him. Something soft. Something _dangerous_. He had few enough weapons as it was. He couldn't afford to let her take any more away from him.

He looked at her clawed hand again. Her breathing had changed, somewhere in the midst of his musings. When he'd stirred, probably. Some part of him had noticed it. She'd kept her hand still, though. Her claws were still lax against the sheet. So close, just in front of his belly. She could rip him open with only the smallest of efforts from here. His pulse only vaguely sped at the thought. He didn't think she'd do it. She had him completely in her power, and a part of him dared to think she wouldn't harm him. 

A drug. A drug, it had to be. Or else a part of him had gone very much insane.

He reached out, while he thought it. He slid his hands forward across the sheet and curled them curiously around hers. She turned it in his grip. She threaded her powerful fingers carefully through his smaller ones.

"... So," she rumbled softly, somewhere above his head. "So you didn't try to kill me in my sleep. A promising start to a marriage, that."

Fami laughed thickly, squeezing her hand convulsively in his, making not so much as a dent. "Kill you with what?" he asked mildly. "My fingernails? I don't know if you've noticed, my lady, but humans aren't so gifted with natural weaponry as kanegai tend to be. I highly doubt I could cause you much damage, even if I was inclined to try."

She paused thoughtfully there. She moved, coming up onto her elbow to lean over him and look down into his face. He blinked up at her. Her face didn't entirely resolve itself, his glasses were still somewhere beyond the bounds of the bed, but he could see the curved, off-white shapes of her sword-teeth, and the yellow of her eyes above them. The longer fur at her neck and shoulders was tawny in the early morning light.

"And aren't you?" she asked, soft and curious. "Inclined to try. You're not a coward, husband of mine. There are ways and means. Doesn't it ever cross your mind?"

Not a coward. He nearly laughed at that. His expression flickered towards vague, moving instinctively to disguise it, but then ... then he stopped. Then he held it, while the remains of last night's lassitude still hummed in his veins, and let it slip away again. He felt his expression harden instead. He felt it become colder and harder and more honest, a far greater risk again.

"Not while my kingdom is so fragile," he answered, offering bald honesty. An odd gift, maybe, and a reckless one, but he had curled into her in his sleep, and some part of him was so stupidly unafraid. Some part of him wanted to offer her the truth. "Our armies are shattered and our resources dangerously spent. You know it. You ensured it. Your people are as strong and united as they've ever been, and while your death might fragment them, they would take everything around them first. One kingdom already lies in ruins before them. I don't want mine to follow. I'm not going to kill you. No matter what you do, my lady, I'm not going to kill you until I'm sure my kingdom would survive it."

Because it survived now only by her mercy. This was what Kaeri didn't realise, what their father hadn't realised either. There had been hatred between her people and the Kingdom of Gedded, their neighbour, for the better part of four hundred years. That land's fate had been sealed the moment she had successfully united her people under her. And _their_ fate had been sealed the moment they entered the war on Gedded's behalf. 

The only reason, the _only_ reason, that they weren't currently the shattered ruin their neighbour was, was because there was no overt grudge between their peoples, and because Calime had been merciful. Because she had allowed their surrender, and allowed a tribute, and allowed a hostage to ensure it. Allowed a _marriage_ , even. It was a concession. He was well aware of that. However painful it might be for the war bride personally, they were still a civilised institution, a tradition of many kingdoms. As his mother had known. There was so much worse than this. One only had to look to the foothills to the southeast to know that.

So he couldn't kill her. He couldn't think it. She had been merciful, and unless and until his brothers found their spine and their strength and their allies once more, Fami could never kill her. She owned the whole of him in truth. 

She pulled her hand away from his. He closed his eyes, knowing what was coming. He held himself loose and easy, let her move him gently around to face her without a flinch. Her clawed hand cupped his cheek, as strange and as careful as ever, and he let the smallest of smiles flicker across his lips.

"... So practical," she murmured, an odd tone to her voice. Distant. If he were fanciful, almost reverent. "You realise the prohibition goes both ways? I can't kill you unless I want to have to slaughter your entire people behind you. I could, maybe. I don't want to. I have to build something that will last, husband of mine. For my people's sake, we need a kingdom in truth. I can't make only enemies in that cause. We've been preyed on for too long. You know that too. You were the force behind this agreement of terms. Who else but you could have arranged to hide or remove every kani item in this place?"

He flinched, a little. Felt some fear and some tautness filter back into his limbs. Her hand remained gentle around his cheek. She had amazing self-control, his wife. Kani. Sword-tooth ivory. A special export of the Kingdom of Gedded. They'd been trade partners for a long time. She was right. It had taken him the better part of a week to clear the evidence of two hundred years of that partnership from his home. From her wedding hall.

"Look at me," she said. Still gentle. Still soft. Her hand moved across his cheek, her claws stirring gently at his curls. Fami opened his eyes. Instinct, to meet her, to never flinch before her. That other thing too. That odd conviction that she wouldn't rip him open. She'd leaned close while he quivered. She was near enough to be crystal clear even to him.

"I don't want to kill you, Fami," she said. Calime. His wife, with her fur and her teeth and the strength and hopes of her people behind her. "Whether I can or I can't, I don't want to. I want to keep you. I want to learn you. I've seen what you'll do to keep your kingdom alive. Someday I hope to see what you might do for mine. Neither of us will betray our people, but there's a lot that can be done while keeping both alive. I can work for that. I want to hope that maybe someday my husband can work with me."

He blinked at her. For a long moment. And then ...

"You wore blue," he said. Nonsensically, to most people, but he saw her eyes sharpen because of it. He saw her startlement, and then the faint curve of her smile. "Yesterday, at our wedding. You wore blue."

"... Yes," she said, a warm weight of acknowledgement in her tone. "Yes, I did. I wasn't sure you'd know what that meant." 

Fami shrugged slightly. "I wasn't sure you'd meant it that way," he said carefully. "It seemed ... wishful thinking." 

He paused, studying her. He reached up and touched ... the sharp, gold-banded curve of one sword-tooth first, then the bearded fur along her jaw, the longer flow of it about her neck and shoulders that he'd combed so carefully last night. Her eyes lidded again, heavy and curious. She didn't flinch from him either. 

"You're not what I expected," he said at last. Letting his hand fall, looking up at her again. Holding her eyes, the way instinct had demanded from the first. "You're nothing I would have thought to hope for either. I don't know how much I can give you. I'll never kill you, but I don't know how much I can promise you beyond that. You hold my kingdom in your hands, Calime. I can't let it fall."

She laughed faintly. Only a breath of it, a curl of rueful humour through her nose. She shook her head, and leaned down towards him. She cupped her hand behind his head, raised it, and curved her own towards it until their cheeks rested oddly, carefully together. Fami stiffened a little in startlement, and then reached up to anchor his hands in the fur along her spine. 

"It will do," she said, her teeth at his jaw, curved inwards towards her own throat. "I can work with that, husband of mine. I've worked with a lot less, for equal prize. Only give me time, and your word to see this through to whatever end it may reach." 

Fami blinked, and then breathed out a little laugh himself. Time, she said. Time, and his life until his death, because that was the only way this ended for him. She held him on their wedding bed. Hadn't he given that already? But he nodded anyway. 

"You have it," he said, and on an odd whim pulled himself back a little, reoriented himself, and pressed a kiss to the broad sweep of her nose above her teeth. An odd thing, a strange, hollow thing, but he had an echo of last night still inside him, that heavy, languorous closeness, and this was the closest he had to offer in return. A two-edged weapon, more than he could afford to give, and nothing he could afford to keep in turn. She stared at him, startled and something else, something more, and then she laughed, and swept him up to curl him against her chest once more. 

"Oh husband," she said, kneeling them both up in their wedding bed, tangling her claws in his curls. "It's a good day, my husband. A good morning. We're still alive, and there's several kingdoms' worth of work to be done. It's a good day to be alive, don't you agree?"

And really, all things considered ... Fami _did_.


End file.
